by Phil Walden
Catchpole turned his head and smiled contentedly. “You know, I’d forgotten how magnificent it looks.”
Spenser thrust a brandy in front of him. “On the rocks if I remember correctly.”
Catchpole took the drink and raised it towards him.
“Thanks, Harry, for everything.”
They touched glasses. “Happy to show you the ropes. Old school tie and all that.”
“You’ve certainly done it proud. Shadow Justice at thirty seven!”
Spenser relaxed against the balcony rail. “Not difficult under the circumstances. Our leader’s all for promoting young blood. It gives the impression the party’s changing.”
“And is it?”
His question was met with a dismissive snort. A momentary silence descended.
Catchpole broke it. “So, come on then. Why me?”
Spenser swirled the brandy around his glass. “Well, for a start, you fit the necessary profile.”
“Which is?”
“You’re fresh, good looking and, dare I say, lower class. Success against the odds.”
“Remind the party of its roots?”
“Never a bad thing. But best of all you’ve cut your political teeth elsewhere. You’re not soiled by the grubby dealing and infighting we’ve had to endure to climb the greasy pole.”
“It’s no different in the States.”
“I know that and you know that but Joe Public doesn’t. To them you bring the promise of a new direction.”
“I thought the whole Green thing was pretty passé over here.”
“Victim of the recession I’m afraid. But it won’t go away. The evidence is simply too compelling. It will be the defining issue for the foreseeable future.”
“Or we may not have a future.”
“Quite. Anyway Devaney has no choice. What else is there? The old Left’s dead, the State’s a dirty word, Europe’s taboo. There’s not even a working class to appeal to anymore. More an underclass beyond any tolerable help.”
“Surely it’s not about class anymore. More about identity. Who we are and who we’re not.”
Spenser shook his head ruefully. “Whatever. It still leaves one almighty policy hole.”
The tall, imposing figure of Dominic Wilson appeared at the French window. “Stop hogging him, Harry.”
“Forgive us, Dominic. Just two old school friends keen on reminiscing.”
“Well, don’t be too long. Everyone’s dying to meet you, Tom.” He retreated back inside.
Spenser leant in close to Catchpole. “Sadly there are whispers.”
“As well as leaks?”
“Doubts Devaney has what it takes.”
“Give the man a chance. He’s barely been in post a year.”
Spenser straightened. “No matter. At best he was only an interim leader.” He gulped down the remnants of his brandy. “There are those who think something should be done.”
“Who for heaven’s sake?”
His friend looked away, his finger pointing accusingly across the river. “You know in years to come, historians will call it the Rotten Parliament.”
Catchpole shrugged. “Hardly surprising when you think of the expenses scandal.”
“A temporary mishap. Here today, gone tomorrow. No. The key factor is that this Parliament has exposed democracy for the sham it really is.”
“That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?
“Not at all. Just look at the facts. Take elections. For a start they only happen every five years and the vast majority of people always vote the same way.”
“Meaning most seats never change hands.”
“Precisely.”
“We could propose proportional representation.”
“That would be the shortest suicide note in history. No, the reality is that two hundred thousand people in just sixty constituencies decide the result.”
“Then we target those seats.”
“Yes. As do our rivals. Everyone rushes to the centre chasing those few floating votes, reacting to every whim and temporary fancy in their lust for power.”
“Your point being that all the parties end up appearing the same.”
Spenser’s hand clasped Catchpole’s shoulder. “My point being that it leads to irresponsible and weak government: a lack of strong leadership, proper planning and the longer term strategy necessary to turn this damn country around.”
Catchpole looked genuinely shocked. “What the hell are you saying, Harry?”
An arm wrapped around him. “Take no notice. Just me sounding off.” He held up the empty glass. “It’s the brandy talking! Come on. Let’s join the throng.” They moved towards the patio door. “Who was it who said democracy was the worst of all possible systems?”
Catchpole ushered him through. “Churchill. But he did add, ‘until you considered the rest’.”
They disappeared inside. Behind them a solitary barge chugged slowly up river.
Chapter Three
Start’s cab flew down a straight, narrow road towards a clear, sun drenched sky. A lone plane crawled across, discharging a long vapour trail. Behind, dark rolling storm clouds boiled up menacingly. Either side the bumpy road fell away towards the banks of two wide dykes. Ripples of water skimmed across their surface, driven by the remorseless wind. Beyond, flat and featureless fields of newly ploughed, black soil stretched as far as the eye could see.
The engine stuttered. The car jerked and jumped erratically. Start cursed and pulled onto the thin, grassy verge, which perched precariously beside the dyke. His finger flicked against the petrol gauge. The needle rigidly stuck at half full. He smacked the steering wheel in frustration. The old bus was beginning to show its age. Hardly surprising with over three hundred thousand miles on the clock and most of those spent ferrying the pampered and powerful around the choking streets of the nation’s capital. Still it had done its job for them and for him. What better vehicle to have for a stakeout than a London taxi. Who would suspect it or even notice it for that matter? You could park it anywhere in the city and with the right contacts it was easy to acquire a congestion charge exemption. The car had been with him throughout his years at The Globe and he was loathe to part with it when he left. Sure it looked out of place here in the Fens but the same could be said of him. They had no choice. There was nowhere else for them to go.
He dragged himself out of the car. The For Hire sign above the windscreen flashed intermittently. He whacked it with his closed fist. It stopped. He circled round to the boot, opened it and removed a jerry can. Wrenching off the petrol cap and fighting to hold himself steady against the buffeting gale, he began to carefully pour in fuel. He whistled, mimicked by the fitful sound of the swirling wind.
The front page of a tabloid newspaper lay on the back seat of the car. Adorning it was a photograph of a beaming woman leaving a media awards ceremony arm in arm with an older man. The headline blazed “Max and Trisha sweep the board!” Both brandished statuettes. As he studied the picture, Start caught his rueful reflection in the side window. She was disappointing him again as she had in so many ways during the last year. How could she stand there with that man, knowing what he had done? His anger was matched by his surprise at seeing Max Coburn willingly photographed in public. This was a man who, in his younger days, sought the limelight, when being seen was crucial to being noticed. But with success and subsequent wealth came a desire to shrink from public view. The more powerful he became, the less accessible he seemed to be, so that, eventually, few people remembered who he was or what he looked like. But, for Trish, Max had made an exception. It spoke volumes.
The deafening blast of a horn shook him from his reverie. Startled, he turned to see the huge churning wheels of a tractor pass inches away. He slammed himself back against the side of the cab. Diesel spilt down his legs. He watched as the giant vehicle thundered along the road. Rain began to fall. Heavy drops pounded his face, streaking down his ruddy cheeks.
*
The cab swung abruptly into a fr
ee parking space marked ‘Editor’. It toppled a brand new bicycle chained to a post at the front of the bay. Start shouldered open the stiff door. He stepped over the stricken bicycle and sauntered up the steps to the main entrance of the Eastern Mail’s glass clad offices.
He pushed through the doors, paced through reception and into a room occupied by frenetic journalists toiling at a myriad of workstations. Paula King rocked back in her chair as Start appeared. The sub editor snarled derisively, “Ah, the Abominable Fenman graces us with a visit.”
Start ignored her, barely glancing in her direction as he passed. Several people looked up, following Start as he strode towards the far end of the room.
A lone voice chirped, “What’s the story this week, Start? Young farmers speed dating? Straw bale catches fire? Donkey found dead in ditch?”
Laughter cascaded through the room as Start lifted a contemptuous middle finger in the direction of them all. He stopped outside the door of a compact office. Inside Jack Deacon toiled at his desk. Deacon had grown old in the year since they’d both left London. The hair had visibly thinned, the cheeks and chin were flushed and the sagging jowls dragged his mouth into a permanent scowl. He never looked happy.
Start steeled himself. He wished he wasn’t here. He hated coming into town. The sooner he saw to business and got out, the better. He opened the door and walked in.
“You’re late.” Deacon looked up. “God, you look rough.”
Start eyed Deacon’s rotund paunch. “You’re not looking too good yourself.”
His editor looked down. “Piss off. Anyway, I’ve bought a bike.”
Start chuckled. “Yes. I noticed”.
Deacon patted his gut. “The missus says I’ve got to shift this little baby before it’s too late.”
“It is too late.”
“Fuck you.”
Start moved forward and perched himself on the desk.
Deacon screwed up his nose as he smelt diesel. “You should get one. Get rid of that wreck of a cab.” He held up an open packet of cigarettes.
Start plucked one out. He looked out to where Paula was sitting. “Thought the Health and Safety mafia had banned this?
“Sod them.” Deacon thrust a lighter under his nose. “The stress I’m under, they can all fuck off.”
Same old Jack, thought Start. Tetchy and foul mouthed as ever. He was one of the old school, forged in the tabloid cauldron of the nineteen eighties. Deacon had taught him so much.
“You said it was urgent.”
“It is.” Deacon tossed over a sheet of paper. “Here, last month’s circulation figures.”
Start gave the sheet a cursory look. “You drag me in for this,” he complained.
“Things have gone pear shaped. Going weekly’s not working.”
“That’s hardly my problem.”
“It will be when there’s no paper. Look. I’ll level with you. I need you here, back in the town, as my chief reporter.”
“Just like the good old days.”
“Licence to report on whoever, whatever, wherever.”
“Dig the dirt you mean.”
“Dirt sells.”
“I’m through with all that. You know that. It’s why I came here.”
Deacon’s face stiffened in annoyance. “Yes and I took you on when no one else would touch you.”
Start threw the sheet back at him. “And why was that, Jack?”
The older man shot to his feet. “Don’t you fucking well dare! You crossed the line. I paid the price.”
They eyeballed each other centimetres apart. Alarmed faces in the newsroom, alerted by the raised voices, peered at the glass window. Paula King hovered outside.
Deacon softened. “We both did.” He patted Start on the shoulder. “Look. You don’t have to decide right now.” He pulled away and slumped back behind his desk. “Take some time. Think about it.”
“I already have. The answer’s no.”
“And if I order you?”
“We both know you won’t.”
“You’re an ungrateful bastard. Well, don’t think this is over. Not by a long chalk.”
“Try looking on the bright side.”
“There is one?”
“Maybe global warming will flood the Fens and I’ll wash up here with the exclusive you need.” Start edged towards the door.
Deacon stopped him in his tracks. “Not so fast.” He held out a folder in his hand. His face had visibly brightened. “There is one more thing.”
*
Outside the newspaper offices, propped against the door of her black and white Mini Cooper, Olivia Preston watched scornfully as Start paced towards her, carrying a heavy cardboard box full of rattling bottles, the tops of which confessed to a variety of high class malt whiskies.
“You still here?” he snapped.
She eyed the box with disdain. “Not out of choice.”
He opened the front door of his cab and dropped the box down in the luggage hold. “Listen, Olive. I’ve told you once. I’ll tell you again. I don’t do interns.”
He moved round and wrenched open the driver’s door. She kicked off the wall and strode towards him, eyes hard and confrontational, arms tightly wrapped around her chest.
“It’s Deacon’s decision, not mine.”
He slammed the door shut. She shouted through the closed window. “And for your information it’s Olivia.”
Start growled back, “Well Olivia, Olive, whatever your name is, go back and ask for someone else.”
“Apparently it’s your turn.”
Start slowly wound down the window.
“You’re wasting your time. You’ll learn nothing from me.”
“Agreed. I mean what could you possibly teach me? I’m aiming to be a proper journalist.”
“Well, good luck with that.”
Much to his annoyance, Olivia refused to budge. “I’ll inform and educate,” she insisted.
He would have to get rid of her.
“Not just titillate,” she added.
“Is that right?” Start snorted.
He wrenched a pad from his pocket and started scribbling. He’d seen many interns in his time and had contrived to avoid them all. Their youthful zeal irritated him. Fresh from university these would-be journalists spouted the same old drivel. They were out to change the world, hold society and its rulers to account and of course make a difference. They were high on principle and low on experience. He’d seen so many fall by the wayside, beaten by the demands of hard pressed editors intent only on selling copy. Too many were broken by an industry hell bent on a mad dash to the bottom in its efforts to feed the demands of a public addicted to the trivial, the downright weird and the salacious. This one was a little older than the usual fodder but no less annoying. He ripped away the sheet and thrust it towards her.
“Here. Inform and educate the masses on that. Give me two hundred words and a photograph.” She snatched it from him. He started the engine and rammed the cab into gear. “Feel free to take forever.”
Olivia scowled at the rapidly disappearing car before turning to read the sheet. Her top lip curled as she muttered contemptuously, “World record marrow?”
Chapter Four
The market town of Battersby nestled deep in the sinuous, verdant valley just north of the Yorkshire industrial belt. It was proud of its history, its love of tradition and stability and had watched somewhat self-satisfied as the larger cities to the immediate south had undergone seismic economic and social change with the decline of the domestic woollen trade. A visitor from the eighteenth century would have noticed few changes to the neat cobbled square at its boisterous centre, encircled by the same alehouses and littered with a range of small independent shops serving the bulk of the community’s needs. Politically it was equally unbending. In reaction to overbearing and demanding landowners it had always embraced a radical agenda in the past, one to which it had stubbornly adhered right up to the modern day. Indeed, it was now regarded as
one of the safest seats in the entire country.
In unseasonably warm sunshine the midweek market was in full swing as Bill Harris, leaning heavily on a brass tipped walking stick, led Tom Catchpole out to meet his electorate. Harris had served as Battersby’s Member of Parliament for the past thirty four years. He was a popular and familiar figure in the town. In some form or another he liked to think he’d helped most of the people within the constituency. But his health was failing. Now, it was difficult enough for him to manage even this short and simple walkabout. But Lucy Hass had leaned on him, stressed the importance of the link between the old and the new and the continuity suggested by him publicly passing on the baton.
So sporting brightly coloured rosettes, the two men began to mingle amongst and greet the many shoppers perusing the variety of stalls laid out in neat rows across the square. Lucy and a clutch of enthusiastic party workers followed closely behind, distributing leaflets as they moved energetically through the crowd.
Catchpole paused to talk to a group of elderly people gathered outside the Post Office. “Yes, I do feel very much at home here. Californian sun mixed with Yorkshire hospitality. I trust I can rely on your vote.”
Several nodded and voiced their approval. He shook hands warmly with each one, before, to general laughter, an old woman pulled him towards her and kissed him on the cheek. His free arm hugged her before he tentatively disengaged his hand from her tight and needy grip.
“Thank you, thank you so much, wonderful to meet you.”
Harris pulled him away. “Pity there’s no baby to kiss.”
Catchpole laughed. “I’m sure Miss Hass is on the case.”
The older man’s gruff accent exuded confidence as the two moved on. “I shouldn’t worry. This has been a rock solid seat for years. It had to be to survive the last debacle.”
Catchpole led the way up the grey stone steps to the party offices. “I’m amazed you’re prepared to give it up.”
“At my age a seat in the Lords, it’ll be champion. One piece of advice though, lad.”
Catchpole turned around. The handle of the walking stick prodded him gently in the pit of his stomach.
